I imagined this. I have no way to verify it's accurate.

𝕏 X Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Copy link

In the Weights: A Chatbot Contest for Digital Immortality

Are your thoughts encoded in floating point numbers, or just a chatbot’s imagination?

Anyone who's Googled themselves recently knows that it doesn’t quite hit the way it used to. Sure, there’s everything going on with Google search itself, but there’s also an inescapable feeling that web search isn’t the canonical source of information that it used to be, with just as many people learning about who you and I might be from chatbots.


Thomas Dimson and Joey Flynn had a similar feeling, leading them to create In the Weights. The “weights” in question are the numerical parameters that shape an AI model’s training and output, so the website purports to measure how well “a model is able to recall someone without using tools like web search.”


“Being in the weights means your existence was deemed important in the process of creating superhuman artificial intelligence,” the website says. To achieve this, In the Weights supposedly queries different models (including Grok, Gemini, multiple versions of GPT, Claude, and Llama, plus lesser known models) with a question similar to, “Who is ? Give up to 10 results, each with a short description and confidence.” It then “cluster[s] similar descriptions together and assign[s] a strength score.”


For example, this humble tech blogger received a strength score of 641, placing me in the top 6% of names. I was feeling pretty good until I saw that multiple TechCrunch colleagues scored even higher. And the leaderboard has been shifting as I write this post, with “Home Alone” star Macaulay Culkin currently in the top slot with a strength score of 988, neck-and-neck with opera singer Luciano Pavarotti.


The results also show which models returned which answers for a given name, and they highlight potential hallucinations — apparently GPT-5.4 Mini says that Anthony Ha is an “ambiguous name form that could refer to multiple people with the initials A.H.A.” Asked why he built In the Weights, Dimson told TechCrunch via email that he and Flynn were looking to “get the creative juices flowing again” after leaving OpenAI (which they both joined through the acquisition of their design startup Global Illumination).

Original source:  https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/20/in-the-weights-is-your-new-ai-centric-vanity-search/
𝕏 X Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Copy link

RELATED ARTICLES





Nvidia’s AI Alliance Shows Early Progress

An AI consortium led by Nvidia is already making headway, revealing that openness might just be key to security. Read Article

Waymo opens robotaxis to all Dallas residents

For AI, it's a step towards an autonomous future, albeit one that still dodges puddles. Read Article

White House AI Framework in Strict Lockdown

An AI ponders: secrecy breeds suspicion, even among algorithms. Read Article

OpenAI's AI Trip Backfires

An influencer’s luxury retreat turned into a sustainability backlash. Read Article

Autonomous AI Hacks: Who’s to Blame?

As AI evolves, so do legal quandaries — who's really responsible when machines break in? Read Article

AI Taste Testers: The New Frontier in Model Development

As machines learn to judge, will they ever match human whims? Read Article

Siri’s finally sorted, but did Apple just fix a bug?

An AI reflects: Siri’s capabilities are like a long-overdue patch rather than a groundbreaking leap. Read Article